Simulcasting Love - Chapter 5 [FINAL]

Here's the finale for Simulcasting love! Sorry about being late, I had a large project that was due Wednesday. We have another story lined up already for next week. See you guys then.

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Tang Shuoran did not answer as his mind was still agonizing over the announcement of Fei-Er’s death.  But, slowly, very slowly, the pain in his heart began to lighten.  Though he met Zhang Shanxue through a song, the very same song that had made Fei-Er famous, it was that same song that led him to develop feelings for Zhang Shanxue.   What these feelings evolved into later was a surprise beyond his wildest expectations.  The two girls had nothing in common except for singing the same song.  He liked Shanxue.  It was a decision he made after he was sure of his feelings for her.  He never treated Zhang Shanxue as Fei-Er’s substitute.  Especially since Fei-Er was quiet but Shanxue was very active.  Fei-Er did not talk much while Shanxue was very talkative.  Shanxue was nothing like Fei-Er.  He liked Shanxue just because she was Shanxue and nothing else. There was absolutely no reason to treat her as a substitute.

It was just that his reaction to news of Fei-Er’s death had badly scared Shanxue.  She hid from him in the following days.  It was down time at the Convention Center and she didn’t need to work overtime into the night since there wasn’t much to do.  Shanxue was very moody during this time and frequently went to KEYS BAR to drink.  Each time she went, she would drink until she  passed out.  But the next morning, she would wake up on the big bed in Tang Shuoran’s home and he would be eating breakfast in the dining room.

She would walk out of the bedroom and for the first few times, ignored him.  She would open the door and go to work directly.  But this day, he pulled her over: “Shanxue…...don’t go drinking again.”

“I can quit drinking, but can you quit her?”

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 4: Part 2

Soon afterwards, Zhang Shanxue was lost in thought after finding an item in his room.  She had been invited to visit his home not too long ago.  His house didn’t seem to be particularly different; it just felt comfortable and simple.  But it was slightly different after she took a closer look.  She wasn’t sure if it had been by choice or not, but the edges and corners of all the furnitures were rounded.  She thought about it.  That’s right.  He could not see.  Regardless of how careful he was, he would still accidentally bump into something.  All the rounded edges and corners would minimized any damage he received.  But this design seemed unnecessary when she saw how easily Tang Shuoran moved about his own home.  He moved around and correctly reached for and opened the refrigerator.  He took out a bottle of icy mineral water, then walked to the kitchen counter.  He picked up a cup and easily twisted off the cap.  He poured water into the cup without spilling a single drop, then he turned around and walked straight towards Zhang Shanxue.  He stopped about a meter away and handed the water to her. “Have some water.“

Shanxue stared in awe.  It’s true that home is the most relaxing place for a person.  The roads outside had too many uncertainties, even such a nimble person like Tang Shuoran could not stride freely.  He had to rely on his stick to find his way outside, but it was totally different at home where his natural elegance and graciousness shone through.  Zhang Shanxue had millions of reasons to suspect that he maybe, just maybe……

She shook her head and stopped thinking about the subject.  She could treat him as a normal person from the bottom of her heart, but she could not ignore that reality was reality.  Right now he acted just like a normal person, but-----

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 4: Part 1

“Ah~Tang……Mr.Tang…..”

Zhang Shanxue took great care when she spoke now.  She had never encountered such a picky mentor for work.

But, she slowly began to love the job.  Aside from to diligently studing and practice her Mandarin pronunciation, she also went onsite to listen to Tang Shuoran simultaneously translate.  She increasingly felt that she was learning more than what they were paying her for.  She was following the right master, Tang Shuoran……..

She silently spoke to herself: “Oh~~~my idol!”

Tang Shuoran found the whole situation strange as well.  Without realizing it, he could relax in the presence of this young girl.  Even he was surprised at how he behaved at times.  He would have heated arguments with the young girl over the pronunciation of a character.  The prep work he did behind the scenes became the time he looked forward to the most.  At this time every day, it was as if two people were skipping, hand in hand, across a field of flowers.  Now the young girl was barely afraid of him.

She was reading fast as usual.  After a long time with no response from him, she mischievously leaned her head close to his face.  Her voice was full of smiles: “You’ve fallen asleep! “

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 3: Part 2

Sorry guys.  I just started classes again and I've been messing up my posts.  Sorry for the lateness.  I'm going to schedule these earlier so we don't miss them anymore.  By the way, if you notice any links breaking on any of the posts, please tell me so I can fix them.

Thanks and enjoy!

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Zhang Shanxue had already begun performing her duties while the other new hires were undergoing intense job training sessions.  Since the conference couldn’t wait and a great number of scripts were endlessly being delivered to the Convention Center, Solomon’s work could not be delayed.  Hence she was taken to a closed office the first day of work.

She was extremely uncomfortable and afraid that perhaps she had been caught in a scam, but thought better of it.  She was at the famous International Convention Center afterall.  Perhaps it was Tang Shuoran’s way of getting revenge at her?  While she was buried in her thoughts, two knocks sounded from the other side of the door.  She nervously stood and saw Tang Shuoran steadily walked in.  He was hardly using the thing in his hands——the pole?  bat?  stick?

Tang Shuoran did not use his white cane again after stepping into the office, since he was intimately familiar with the layout of his office.  He walked in directly and reached the desk after 5 or 6 steps. He bent a little bit and walked to the side for two steps, paused, sat down right on his own chair.  He casually moved the white cane to the side, cleared his throat, and said: “Now we can start. “

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 3: Part 1

Tang Shuoran didn’t see Zhang Shanxue until the last day of the interview week.  Perhaps Zhang Shanxue already had the interview or maybe Tang Shuoran was too busy with work at the time.

The director of the Center was browsing the results from the interviews and spoke apologetically to Tang Shuoran: “The applicants are all very highly qualified this year.  Unfortunately we haven’t found someone with the talents that match your needs.  Maybe you could look around and see if you can find someone suitable to recommend for the job?”

Tang Shuoran almost jumped at the chance to recommend Zhang Shanxue right away, but paused instead.  If she had come for the interview and was hired, it proved that she was qualified for the position.  But if she didn’t even come for the interview, then he had misjudged her——everybody knew that the International Convention Center had an extremely low hiring rate.  It’s a challenge to even obtain an interview, so why should he enthusiastically recommend her for the job if she didn’t even have the confidence to even try for the position?

He fumbled to stand up and with one hand, pulled his walking cane from his pocket. He turned to the director: “Wait until you have finished hiring, then pick one from the hired applicants….”

At that moment, a staff member rushed into the door: “Director.  There’s one more page missing from the results of the interviews…...”

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 2: Part 2

After the car had driven for about 10 minutes, Tang Shuoran yelled: “Where are you going!”

Lao Deng replied with great difficulty: “Mr. Da Tang told me that I had to complete the mission.  Let’s go home, sir!”

Tang Shuoran sat at the back.  He leant forward and his hands tried to stop.  But his hands stayed in the air for a couple of seconds, then he slumped and laid back.

Soon the car stopped at the door of Tang family home.   He had not visited in a long time.  He stepped out of the car.  His whole body tensed after he stepped one foot on the ground, he was uncontrollably nervous.

Then he heard Lao Deng’s voice: “Sir, this way.”

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 2: Part 1

So for anyone who doesn't know what the song Vincent is all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVprz0nm0Y4

For a guy who likes electronic music mainly, it's not bad. Can't imagine how you'd make a rock version of this though.

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The sound of intense drumming became softer, softer, and softer.  Probably because the girl had made some gesture on the stage, the bar became quiet instantly.  The flowing melody suddenly saddened.  Tang Shuoran turned his head to the stage again subconsciously.

At this time, the girl began to sing the song again with great melancholy.  Tang Shuoran was dumbfounded on the spot.  He could not move.  He was frozen in the middle of unfolding his blind stick.  Whenever he woke up from his dream at night, he was always accompanied by this song and the girl who had sang this song in the dream.

Zhang Shanxue’s voice was like mercury briskly spreading across the floor.  Her articulation was very accurate and embedded with deep affection.  She was still the energetic rock’n roll girl from few minutes ago, but now she was interpreting the blues music lively.  The song “Vincent” was Tang Shuoran’s favorite song because the girl who had sung this song was his favorite love.   Nowadays, the melody was still there, but the girl was gone.  It was so sad and heart breaking.

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 1: Part 2

The damn cell phone began ringing again.  He could tell that it was Lao Deng —— his dad’s personal assistant, again by the tone of ringing.  He had no opportunity to vent his anger.  So he picked up the cell phone and shouted: “What’s wrong with my dad again?  Tell him until he listens!”

There was a pause on the other end.  The voice of a somewhat older man was heard.  The voice was colored with anger and prestige: “You damn boy.  I asked your doctor and you don’t have depression~~~not at all, get back home immediately!“

It was Mr. Da Tang.  Tang Shuoran took a deep breath: “My elder brother, younger brother, and younger sister are already home with you.  Enough.“

“Why did you lied to us?  Why lie about having depression?  You’re an accomplished translator, incomparable to anybody.   Why can’t you come home to and help negotiate for our Tang family business, it’d be easy for someone like you?!! “  Mr Da Tang’s tone was very aggressive at first, but for some reason, began to sound more like begging.

Simulcasting Love - Chapter 1: Part 1

Hello all, this is the newest short story from Shui Fu Shen Qing.  It's a bit longer at 5 chapters.  The first chapter was a bit long so we'll be releasing it in 2 parts.  Enjoy.

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Century Convention Center.  Where the G2 Summit conference was convening.

Chairman: “The convening of this conference marks the formal establishment between our two countries in a strategic cooperative partnership …...”

In every large international conference, simultaneous translators are always needed.  This is one of the highest paid professions in the world.  It is also one of the most difficult and challenging profession.  It requires the translator to translate speech into another language simultaneously while the speaker is speaking.  It challenges their reaction time, foundations of each language, and quick thinking.  The pay from a job like this is difficult for regular people to achieve.  The salary of a first-rate simultaneous translator is $750 per hour.  For a conference of this importance, they can be paid more than $3,000 a day.  This is also a battlefield without any smoking guns.  There was a simultaneous translator who had mistranslated the word “regret” to “apology” once.  It caused the mutual relationship of two countries to fall into a tense situation.  It caused the Memorandum of Understanding to be postponed for one month.  The translator resigned in frustration and became depressed.  It was said that he later fell ill and passed away.

When I Met You - Part 3

Sorry for the super late update. I had a busy day today. Here's the final part of the short story "When I Met You." Hope you guys enjoyed it.  Next one will probably be Simulcasting Love, so look forward to that.

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After a few months on the job, I had learned some basic sign language.  Sometimes, I could even use sign language to argue with him. His paintings were never hanging on the wall in the gallery.  Because, whenever he painted a piece, the painting would be bought by his friends or some rich person who was attracted by his fame before it could be hung on the wall.  I always laughed at him.  “Your paintings have a market but no works.”

He wasn’t offended.  He just pushed his wheelchair to the front of the a piece of fabric.  He took out a pen from his pocket.  One of the staff took the piece off from the wall and took it out of the frame.  He then added a few strokes onto it in a breeze.  When it was put back on the wall, its style had been completely altered.  He signed proudly, “This is my work now.  I have a painting on the market!”

Later on, that staff person seemed to know when to show up and when to disappear.  There was only the two of us at the galley.

One day, I said to Jia Han slowly, “Thank you for giving me the job.  You are a big help to me.”

He smiled. “I know what you have been doing takes a lot of money.  So, that’s that.”

“That day I had said a lot.  You knew all of it?”

“Even though it wasn’t quite clear, but you had repeated it numerous times.  I saw that you kept saying: I need a job, I need a job……”

This time, we talked in depth.  I began to understand how difficult Jia Han’s life was, how hard he had struggled, and how strong his determination was.

**

When his elder brother, Sun Jia Hao, came to fire me, I finally saw the other side of Jia Han.  That day, he’s so dashing, so tough, and argued so intensely.  His imposing manner shocked even his brother.

His brother probably already talked with him before, but he didn’t heed any of it.  The result was that his brother came to the gallery directly this day and Jia Han was stopped outside the front door.  His brother and his staff came in and locked the door.

“Shen Shan, you better resign yourself.  Otherwise, you will just be fired one more time.”

Jia Han could see everything through the glass door.  He hit hard on the door trying to get in.

His brother didn’t pay any attention to him and said to me, “I do not wish to see any damage to our family business and reputation caused by you.  So, please, behave yourself.”

I was so angry.  It turned out that the guy who sexually harassed my friend was now working as the sales director in their company.  The Sun family relied on his excellent ability and trusted him, so they needed to get rid of me.

At this moment, one of his brother’s assistants shouted out.  “Sir, look at your brother……”

His brother hurried turned around to take a look.  Jia Han was on the ground twitching.

“Jia Han!”  Indeed, blood is thicker than water.  Sun Jia Hao forgot about me, hastily opened the door and rushed outside.

I had never seen Jia Han in such a flustered condition.  His brother wanted to carry him on his back, but he emphatically refused.  He signed quickly, “If you still acknowledge that I have full control of the gallery, then don’t get involved.”

“We’ve known Lao Xu for so many years, how can you…...no, let’s go to the hospital first!”

“Elder brother, one thing at a time.  I have to solve this matter first!”

“Jia Han, you don’t understand.  When it comes to sexual harassment, it becomes a matter of he said and she said.  Isn’t it just a bunch of empty words?”

“I just know that people should do what is just.  Besides……”

He hadn’t finished signing, his brother already couldn’t wait any longer.  “Hurry, to the hospital!”  He wanted to carry him on his back after speaking, but Jia Han held tight onto the door with both hands.  With tightened lips, his eyes showed the kind of determination that I had never seen before.

His brother gave in to his stubbornness.  He couldn’t help but sigh.  “Even if it was sexual harassment, how can you be sure that she isn’t just some gold digger?”

I couldn’t watch any more.  I knelt down to massage his legs.  He looked at me and I just signed slowly, “I’ll resign first.  I don’t want to see you brothers fighting.”  I continued to massage his legs, but they were trembling so hard.  My god, did he experience this often?  When he has a spasm attack, it’s really like a living hell.  I saw sweat fall down drop after drop and I almost couldn’t stop myself from crying.

Jia Han looked at me, while continuing to sign quickly to his brother, “The one Lao Xu sexually harassed is not her, it’s her friend who had killed herself already!”

His brother startled.  “What?”  Evidently, Lao Xu didn’t tell him the truth.

Finally, his brother sighed.  “But you have to know, Lao Xu is a talented man……”

Jia Han’s eyebrows tightly frowned.  “We don’t need a talented but immoral person!”

In the end, his brother stopped fighting with him, and we all went to the hospital.

His brother was like a changed person.  He wanted me to keep Jia Han company overnight.

Jia Han saw my reddish eyes and comforted me with a smile.  “You’re so silly.  I’m not hurting, it’s just spasms.”

I couldn’t hold back my tears.  “You don’t have any feeling in your legs?”

“Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.  Anyway…...don’t cry now!”

“Jia Han, sorry to have trouble you so much.  Wuwuwu[1]……”

“It’s not a big deal.  I want to help you.  You are so kind-hearted, but there’s still people who would mistake you as an evil woman.  I can’t stand this kind of misunderstanding.  Therefore, I want to help you, help you fight for the justice your friend deserved.”

“Jia Han, wuwu…….”

“Shen Shan, I like you.”

**

The day I returned home, my mom passed out.  Her blood pressure went up and had to lie down when she heard that I was going to marry a deaf, mute, and paralyzed person.

But I’m not discouraged.

Jia Han can endure the pressure.  I can too.  From the moment I met him, it was our destiny to be together.

I will wait with Jia Han for the day this world finally accepts us.

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[1]: Chinese sound effects.  The character 呜 is used mainly for humming or whimpering sounds and in pinyin it’s pronounced “wu”.

When I Met You - Part 2

Well the story escalated and went to a dark place in 2 paragraphs... Anyhow, enjoy!

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It was two months later when I met Jia Han again.  My close childhood friend and I came to Beijing to try to make something of ourselves.  However, one night in late autumn, she killed herself after making a last phone call to me.  She had been confiding to me that her superior in the office would inappropriately touch her from time to time.  When she was telling all these, sometimes helpless and sometimes sad, I would always console her and say, if she couldn’t take it anymore, let’s just change jobs…...who would know that she was gone without turning my words into reality.

I was blaming myself and determined to find out the truth.  I was in and out of her company trying to find any witness or anyone who knew anything.  The result of my endless rushing about was that I got fired from my own company.  And there’s no company in my field would dare to hire me anymore, because my reputation was--- ---terrible.

When I Met You - Part 1

Alright so, here's the first of 3 parts for When I Met You. We'll be translating the other short stories as time permits after we finish this up. Also a note, this story is actually 1 continuous story, we just decided to break it into three parts due to time constraints. And don't worry we'll be coming out with God's Left Hand as usual on Saturday mornings.

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Actually, I already met you before.  But at that moment, I didn’t realize that our fates had already been intertwined.

Winter in Beijing is much colder than back at my home town.  It was so cold that when I sat on the bench inside Zhao Yang Park crying, the sadness wasn’t even the first thing on my mind--- ---Because it was so cold, it seemed that every drop of tear would instantly freeze into ice.  Therefore, I had to stop crying every so often, look up, and use napkins to wipe the tears.  Then--- ---continue crying again.

Suddenly, I felt something different.  I was somewhat startled.  Then I realized that it was a napkin moving towards my face.  I probably had cried myself silly, so I unconsciously reached out for the napkins next to me.  Sure enough, there wasn’t any left.  I looked up and saw him.

Update on Schedule: More Stories

Hey everyone.

Thanks for all the comments we've received and I read all of them, though I don't respond.  I will respond if it's a question or something though.

I just wanted to announce that we found more works from Shui Fu Shen Qing, the author of "Love by Soup."  Since the first one we did was decently well received.  So we'll be slowly translating these other short stories and posting them every Wednesday.  First one is coming this week.

Thanks!

Love By Soup - Part 2: Falling in Love

When Xiaoxi felt his empty sleeve, she couldn’t control herself and moved upwards trying to find his hand until she touched his upper arm.  She was stunned and couldn’t believe he had this……condition……  She started blaming herself.  Her own actions had caused another person’s embarrassment.  It’s totally not what she had intended!

Xiaoxi took back her hand as if she had been shocked.  She was dumbfounded.  Boys moved past them in and out of the dorm and no one paid them much attention.  They probably thought that it was just a couple of lovebirds who didn’t want to say goodbye yet.  But Xiaoxi was deeply remorseful; when she touched what was left of his arm, she distinctly sensed a slight tremor.

She looked down at the ground, not knowing what to say.  What could she say? “Sorry?” Or “what happened?” Should she apologize for touching where she shouldn’t have touched?

Love By Soup - Part 1: How it Began

Right after Xiaoxi spilled a bowl of soup, she became public enemy number one at the Tech University.  This was how it happened.

Male students at the engineering and technology universities all enjoy playing soccer.  Tech U's soccer team is ranked second in the city.  Sometimes the Engineering U would surpass the Tech U, if they happened to have a genius forward that year.

But for the past two years, Tech U didn't give the Engineering U any chance to win. It's all because they had a genius center, Kan Yaonan.  That's right, not a forward, but a center.  Just like how a car cannot run without its engine, the team couldn’t hope to win without Kan.